When Education Minister David Eggen held a news conference Tuesday to announce he was shutting down the Trinity Christian School Association, he understandably didn’t look happy.

In fact, he looked downright sick.

Perhaps he was thinking of the scale of the “financial impropriety” discovered by a government audit into the school association that provides home schooling to almost 3,500 children.

Among other things, the audit discovered that $988,000 in government funding that was supposed to be passed on to parents by the association didn’t make it.

Or perhaps Eggen was simply dreading a run-in with the never-reticent home-schooling community that has shown itself to be suspicious of all government, but especially an NDP government.

And a run-in is just what Eggen got.

Social media lit up with angry messages about the government interfering with the rights of home-schoolers. Some suggested the government was persecuting Christians. Others suggested the Alberta Teachers’ Association was somehow linked to the government action.

Trinity Christian itself was just as angry as the parents.

Its web page offered a defiant message Wednesday, accusing the government of announcing the shutdown via a news release “filled with partial truths amounting to calumny.”

The message told parents to ignore the government’s recommendation that they enrol their children for home schooling with another school board: “You are being told to give notification to another school for this year, but we are encouraging you not to do anything yet.”

Not surprisingly, parents are confused. The government is telling them to register their children with another school board for home schooling while their own home-schooling association — that’s been around since 1994 — is telling them to hold firm. “Trinity Christian intends to defend its interests in this matter and will be reviewing all documentation released by the Alberta government,” said the association in a brief news release.

You have to feel some sympathy for the parents who simply want to do what’s best for their children.

But it’s fascinating to see the reaction of those parents who are angry with the government. At least those on social media. They don’t seem particularly upset with the school association despite the government’s 37-page audit that discovered allegedly inappropriate expenses for food, alcohol, gift cards, babysitting and groceries. They’re angry with the government.

The government, by the way, gave Trinity Christian about $5.5 million a year and the association then directed the money to a third party, Wisdom Home Schooling Society, to run the home-schooling operations.

Among the troubling things discovered by the audit: Wisdom leased a modular from a “non-arm’s length party” for $105,000 a year — 10 times what the government thought reasonable.

Eggen and government officials held a telephone town hall with parents Tuesday and Wednesday nights to explain what is going on. The government has also posted information on the Alberta Education web page to help parents register their children with other school boards.

That hasn’t stopped critics from complaining.

“Many families are asking why the minister did not take interim measures that would have allowed them to avoid the confusion created by yesterday’s announcement,” Wildrose MLA Mark Smith said in a news release.

Government officials said Eggen moved as quickly as he could once he received the disturbing audit. He couldn’t very well allow the school association to continue to operate when, as the government says on its web page, the audit had discovered “significant misuse of public funding.”

By telling parents “not to do anything yet,” the school association seems to think it’s in a standoff with the government.

It’s not. The education minister has the power to accredit and un-accredit school boards and associations.

Trinity Christian is no longer accredited by the province. Eggen is sending his department’s audit to the RCMP and the Canada Revenue Agency to “determine whether further investigation is warranted.”

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